


Guerrilla 742

by Flux



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 02:04:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2564198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flux/pseuds/Flux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The country's gone to shit, but that's not Dean's problem.  He's got his own little band of refugees to take care of.  He's gonna leave the big stuff to the Caesars of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guerrilla 742

**Author's Note:**

> [Art Masterpost by musingsofashley](http://musingsofashley.tumblr.com/post/101717480737/title-guerrilla-742-author-aiulbones-on-tumblr-or)

“We got some new recruits!” Ash calls merrily from his seat atop the hummer as it rumbles through the gates. He’s drinking PBR, which means it was a good run; all limbs accounted for, all toes a-wiggling.

“Looks more like refugees to me,” Rufus mutters, blowing his cigarette smoke out in one long stream right into Dean’s face.

“If you gotta do that, do it downwind, will ya?” Dean scowls, coughing dramatically at the smell of tobacco.

“Pussy,” Rufus grumbles, but he does stub out the embers on railing and tuck it behind his ear. “Let’s see what Ash dragged home this time.”

The old man heads down the bank to the flatbeds in back, hollering at Chuck to get his ass in gear. Chuck stumbles after him, jacket flapping in the wind, arms clutching his register.

Dean wipes his hands off on the worn denim of his jeans and pushes off the column to get a better view. Four people climb out of the Hummer – a father-son duo judging by the russet skin and almond eyes, a very pregnant woman, and, well, Dean doesn’t really know what to make of the last guy.

They climb the steps up to the yard proper with backpacks slung over their shoulder and duffels clutched in their hands, filled to bursting with the pieces of their old lives.

Except the last guy. He climbs the worn wooden planks with eyes unfocused, one hand gliding over the metal railing, but never quite touching it. His other hand clutches at his shirt, holding it closed over the seam of one, long, jagged cut.

Dean shakes their hands. Ken. Jake. Risa. He holds out his hand for the last guy as he plants his foot on the top of the staircase, slow and deliberate. Blue eyes fix on his hand before slowly tracing his arm up to his face. Dean’s smile freezes on his lips.

He doesn’t go on pick-ups. Not anymore. Not since Abilene. It’s the eyes that got to him, then and now. He used to joke that Sam could just look at him with his big puppy eyes and get him to do anything from buying an extra pack of gummy bears to letting him apply to Stanford. And this guy, this guy has eyes that can bring worlds down around Dean’s ears, make earth crumble and buildings fall and stars wink out of existence.

But then it’s over, warm fingers sliding out of Dean’s grip as the man follows the others into the big house and Ash is standing in front of him, slipping a drink into his empty hand.

“Shit,” Dean mutters, popping the tab and taking a sip of the lukewarm beer. “Who’s that?”

“You tell me. You’re the one having staring contests with the dude.”

“Shut up,” Dean snaps, knocking Ash’s arm, beer sloshing over both their fingers.

“Hey! This is the nectar of the gods. Some respect, man.”

Dean lifts one eyebrow and Ash caves.

“Castiel. His name’s Castiel.”

***

Dean settles into the creaky arms of the rocking chair feeling like some grouchy old man getting ready to yell the kids off the front lawn. He chuckles into his beer. It’s about six years too late to get everyone off Bobby’s land. He still remembers the endless stretch of wild grass that met him when he stepped out of the Impala, wondering what the hell his dad was doing in South Dakota. Back then, the big house had been nothing more than a wooden frame with a gravel driveway leading down the bank, surrounded by acre after acre of empty land. That’s all buried now, by the work-yard in the east and the cabins to the west. Still, compared to the tarmac and cement-crusted company lands, they’re basically living in the wild.

When he tilts his head back, he can see the stars fill the sky. There were never this many back in Lawrence. With the streetlights filling the night, he could make out the Big Dipper and Orion’s belt, hanging like carefully arranged ornaments in the dark expanse. But here, he can see the universe, unbounded and chaotic and free.

Of course, he can also see other things from the back porch as well. Such as Chuck hurrying out of the stock house, white pages of the register flapping beneath his arm. If there’s anyone who’s firmly grounded in the rules and regulations of earth, it’s Chuck.

Dean slaps his thighs and stands up as Chuck shuffles his way onto the porch. From the wild look in his eyes, one might think there was some sort of emergency – a truckload of lawmen riding down from P&G or an electrical fire in the warehouse – but Dean knows better.

“What’s up?” he asks, even though he has a pretty good idea.

“They didn’t pick up enough toilet paper! I clearly marked down that we needed at least twenty-four cases and they came back with ten. Ten, Dean! I cannot keep this place running on ten cases of single-ply.”

Dean nods more to himself than to anything Chuck is saying.

“Yeah, well, they raised the grain costs, so we had to make cuts somewhere. You’re just going to have to figure something out.”

“Figure something out?” Chuck practically vibrates in his boots. “I’m not some magic toilet paper god! I can’t just make Cottonelle fall out of the sky. I was there during the riots in Daytona, Dean. It was not pretty.”

“Weren’t those riots about P&G closing down public facilities?”

“Yes! They started charging people for toilet paper. People were using newspapers. Leaves! Like animals. Do you know what happens when you treat people like animals? They start acting like them!”

“Okay.” Dean grabs Chuck by his shoulders, holding him in place until he stopped shaking. “The sky’s not gonna fall ‘cause we’re low on toilet paper. Look, I’ll bring it up at the meeting on Thursday, tell people they gotta monitor their own paper use. Don’t freak out about this. Do not, and I mean this, Chuck, do not try to ration the toilet paper. We will figure something else out. This isn’t the worst thing we’ve had to get through, Chuck.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay, you’re right,” Chuck agrees, nodding his head and taking a deep breath. “We’ll be fine. It’s just toilet paper, right? Yeah. Just toilet paper.”

He walks back out into the darkness nodding his head and muttering the line like a personal mantra. Dean lets his head fall back with a sigh. This isn’t going to be the last he hears of it, because as much as he hates to admit it, Chuck is right. There are times and people that got by without basic amenities like scratchy single-ply, but these are not those times or those people. Take away things that people weren’t prepared to lose and they get scared. When people get scared, they get stupid and it’s Dean’s job to make sure that doesn’t happen. His job is to keep these people safe. If that means finding some goddamn toilet paper, then he’s going to have to find some goddamn toilet paper.

“How the fuck am I supposed to do that?” he asks the empty air.

“Are you alright?”

The voice comes from behind and Dean nearly trips over the porch railing as his jerks around.

“Shit! Where did you come from?”

“Um.” Castiel glances behind himself. “The dining room. Or possibly the filing room. The furnishing is somewhat ambiguous.”

Dean stares, and only when the wry smile drops from Castiel’s face does he realize it was even there in the first place.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel says, hands fidgeting at his sides. “Am I interrupting?”

“No!” Dean throws up his hands, but lets them drop again when he realizes there’s nothing for him to hold or grab or do. “I thought you were asleep. I mean, not you specifically, but the people who came in today. Which would include you. So I thought you were asleep.” Dean takes a deep breath and starts over. “Hi, I’m Dean.”

“Yes,” Castiel says. “We’ve done this already.”

“Right.” Dean fidgets for a moment before gesturing at the bench. “You wanna sit?”

Castiel settles down on one end and Dean takes his seat on the other.

“Aren’t you tired? Big day today.”

Castiel squints into the darkness. “Maybe I should be. I couldn’t sleep.”

“The quiet getting to ya?” Dean still remembers his first night here, when he drowning in the silence.

Castiel nods, leaning back against the wall. “It’s strange. I used to think that if the neighbors would stop shouting and the trucks would stop driving past my window, I would be able to sleep better, but it’s so quiet here and all I can do is lie there waiting for the noise to start.”

“We should room you with Bobby. His snores will put you right out,” Dean jokes, and he’s gratified to see the corners of Cas’ mouth quirk up. Not that he’s staring at the guy’s lips. They’re just, sort of, noticeable.

“How’s your head?”

Cas reaches up to touch the edge of the bandage plastered above his temple. “It’ll heal.”

“Yeah? Bad-ass scar to impress the ladies?”

“I hope not.”

“No scar or no ladies?”

Castiel freezes, stutters. “Um, no, um, no scar.”

“Hey,” Dean says softly, nudging Cas’ foot with the toe of his boot. “We don’t do that here. No sexual morality classes. No bachelor’s tax. No blind eyes.”

“Oh,” Cas says, eyes fixed on the ground. “I’d heard rumors.”

“About the amoral heathens living in the sticks? Sorry, but we cancelled the weekly orgies after lightning bolts rained from the sky and turned all our boots to salt.”

Cas snorts. “You’re getting your gods mixed together.”

Dean shrugs. “Eh. They got a problem with me they can come down here and tell me themselves.”

They sit in companionable silence for a little while before Cas clears his throat.

“How, uh, how did you know?”

Now it’s Dean’s turn to avoid Cas’ eyes. “Was maybe more hoped than knew.”

“Oh.”

When Dean finally chances a glance, Cas isn’t looking at him, but there’s a pleasant pink blush spread high over his cheeks. Dean grins.

“Come on.” He stands and offers Cas a hand.

“Where are we going?” Cas asks as he pulls himself up.

“To the living room slash junk pile.”

Cas follows him curiously, with way too much trust, as Dean leads him through the dark corridors to the repurposed room filled with old couches and cardboard boxes. He flips on the light and rummages through the topmost box stacked next to the boarded-up fireplace, letting out a triumphant ‘aha’ when he finds what he’s looking for.

Dean tosses the tape player through the air and Cas catches it with only a slight fumble.

“What is this?”

“Cassette player.”

Cas squints at the black metal box. “They still make those?”

“Nah.” Dean digs through a few more out-dated appliances – can-openers and phone chargers mostly – and comes up with a dented tin. “What you’re holding there is a genuineantique. Found it when we were cleaning out one of Bobby’s storage units.”

“And it still works?”

“We’ll see.”

They sit on the floor because there’s really nowhere else to sit and Cas chooses one of the tapes out of the tin. He pops it into the player and the speaker crackles to life, tinny and distorted like it’s fighting its way through the seventy some years since it was recorded.

The piano is soft and raw and the man’s voice isn’t the best, not the clearest or the most resonant, but there’s something earnest and true that lulls Dean’s heartbeat into a peaceful calm. After a minute, he catches himself yawning and glances over to see Castiel already half asleep, chin in his hand.

“Hey,” he says, nudging his shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get you back to bed.”

Cas goes without a fight and Dean settles the player on the ground beside the bed where Cas can just reach down and turn it off if he wants to, but by the way his eyes close as soon as he hits the covers, Dean doubts that’ll be any time soon. He shakes out his arms as he heads back down the stairs, turning off the lights as he goes. His own bed is calling to him from the first cabin to the right, just barely visible in the dark. He steps off the porch and smiles. The stars shine above him.

***

“On the left there you’ve got the canteen. You run out of rations or just plain don’t feel like cooking, you eat at the canteen, but there’s really only so many times you can eat Bobby’s chili before you start feeling it in your teeth.”

Dean leads the new recruits through their little town, introducing them to the people and places that will constitute their daily lives here in Sioux Falls.

“This the same Bobby that owns this place?” Risa asks.

“Majority share-holder,” Dean corrects him, “but that is correct. We started out eating that damned chili and it’s stuck around ever since. Fastest, cheapest way to get all five food groups into one bowl. Keeps well, heats well, and fills you right up. Sundays Jillian does her babo noodles and Luis does ropa vieja whenever we get surplus beef. You guys got any experience feeding a couple dozen people, you feel free to offer up your own dishes.”

“What about food allergies?” Ken asks.

“Dad,” Jake hisses with the exasperation of the perpetually annoyed teenager.

“Nah, it’s okay. That’s a good question actually. The canteen is nut-free. There’s sesame oil in a bottle for those that want it, but none in the food. Chili’s gluten-free, soy-free and Jill also does babo rice. Anything more specific than that and you might have to cook for yourself.”

“Figures,” Jake mutters.

“Look, come talk to me later. See if we can’t figure something out,” Dean offers, but Jake just mutters something under his breath, shoulders hunched in and hands in his pockets. Dean bites his cheek. Jake isn’t Sam and it’s not his place to butt in, at least not yet.

Ken rolls his eyes and the subject is closed, so Dean moves on.

“That’s the main storehouse there behind those sycamores, where we keep most of the perishables, but there are a few smaller ones that we use for dry and canned goods as well as other supplies. I’ll point them out to you as we walk.”

Dean watches their faces as they go, seeing how they react. Not everyone takes to communal living as well as they think they will, and the warning signs usually show up pretty early. Sometimes reluctance will smooth out, but other times, it sits quietly and ferments into something ugly.

Risa and Ken nod along, faces open and relaxed as they absorb the information. They already came to terms with the idea of this life, if not necessarily the technicalities, before they came here. Jake stays surly, faint sneer fixed on his lips. Dean cuts him some slack. Jake’s a teenager in a new town where his only friend is his dad, and Dean remembers what it was like to have his defenses up. Still, he’ll have to keep an eye on him.

And then there’s Cas, Castiel, who looks at everything like a shiny new puzzle that he has to figure out. He spends five minutes inspecting the water reclamation system attached to the showers before Dean has to physically drag him away. It’s well, it’s flattering really, especially since Dean had his hand in designing the thing. Which he may mention. But there are other people whose eyes are glazing over while he talks about the filtration and how it supports the HVAC.

They move on to scheduling, communal chores, job development, and the credit system and Cas is still bright-eyed and transfixed. Dean preens a little on the inside. A little on the outside, too.

After they break for lunch, Dean joins Cas in the canteen line.

“So what do you think?”

“It’s fascinating. I still don’t understand how all of this can possibly work.”

“It works because people want it to.” Dean shrugs. He knows it’s all a bit improbable, but good will and a little self-sacrifice can force miracles to spring up in the middle of barren South Dakota grassland. “Everyone who’s here wants to be here.”

“Except me,” Cas supplies, glancing down.

“You could.”

Cas nods his head, but his lips stay pressed in a hard line.

Dean sighs. “Look. No one’s going to force you to stay here, but you should know that it’s not that easy to go back.” Only a handful of people have come and gone. The whole country is in a deep recession and jobs just aren’t that easy to come by and companies aren’t eager to hire someone who jumped ship once. Besides, he got a hectic story of ‘the dude saved our asses coming out of P&G’ from Ash. Interfering with ‘security measures’ is a major contract infringement, a big hulking black mark on the employment record. In some places it could even mean jail time. He really doesn’t want to see Cas leave just to get shoved behind bars.

“I know,” Castiel says quietly, shuffling forward in the queue. “A part of me knew there was no going back the moment I decided to ram that van, but I didn’t think I’d leave. I thought this was it. I do this and I throw away the rest of my life. But then that Hummer came back for me. And I got in.”

The faintly stunned look from the day before is back in his eyes.

“Hey,” Dean says, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Give it a few days. Part of you wants to be here. Let’s see if we can’t get the rest of you caught up, okay?”  
Dean can see the moment when Castiel shakes himself out of his trance, blue eyes focusing back on him, faint crease in his brow.

“Okay?” Dean asks again. This time Cas nods faintly. It’s safer for everyone if Cas decides he wants to make this work. But more than that, Cas would be happier.  
“You don’t have to make any decisions now. Just make it up as you go.”

***

Dean rushes into his room and flicks on his monitor just in time for the title card to flash across his screen. He doesn’t watch much tv nowadays, just the weekly rerun of Doctor Sexy on Tuesday nights and this, the local news out of DC. It’s only on for half an hour in the middle of the afternoon before the stream dissolves back into celebrity gossip and ‘reality’ shows. It’s almost like they don’t want people to know what’s going on in the capital.

The anchor opens up the report with a piece on school district re-zoning and Dean opens up his notebook. He listens with half an ear as he finalizes the agenda for the town meeting, looking for a place to pencil in Chuck’s toilet paper request. Honestly, he should just keep a permanent place holder for whatever Chuck is worrying over that particular week.

His ears perk up at the mention of a lawsuit and he glances at the screen, searching the ticker for names. A couple law firms pop up, but none of them seem familiar, and he settles back into his chair. He honestly doesn’t give a damn about politics anymore. He used to, back when Sam was in high school and spent every other breath railing against the corruption present in every echelon of the system. He grew out of it, learned that there’s really jack shit that anyone can do. Even the largest grassroots movement can be derailed by the tiniest concession from the White House and no one cares the next week when the motion is undone. No, his place is here, helping those that he can, no matter how paltry the numbers seem against the whole.

Sam never understood that, never grew out of his rage. He just sharpened it with a law degree, turning it into a weapon. Fucking stupid. What the hell is he going to do with a knife in a gun fight? But there’s no talking sense once Sam’s got an idea under that floppy mop of hair. So now he’s in DC, not making a bloody difference, and Dean’s stuck here waiting for the moment when the giant hand finally decides to swat away the gnat. But it doesn’t happen today. The news report ends without mention of Sam or his firm and Dean takes his first easy breath since it began. Sam’s fine. Sam’s fine and Dean can go another day without freaking out as long as he keeps himself busy.

***

Dean takes a cold drag of water from his canister. His throat hurts like a mother fucker from speaking for so long. He’s still not used to running these meetings on his own, what with Dad and Bobby still away on their hunting trip and Rufus more likely to yell at people than lead them. He actually doesn’t have to talk that much during the meeting itself, but afterwards, directing who does what and which questions go where and figuring out when everything is going to happen, it’s enough to make his vocal cords shrivel up and die.

Sometimes he thinks that someone else should be doing this. The camp is young – not many old folk looking to start over in the middle of nowhere – but most people have still got a few years on him. But he’s been here the longest, knows where everything is, how everything works. He could train someone up, but that would mean he’d have to trust someone with everything. This isn’t a job you can half-ass.

Dean escapes into the dark. Night falls earlier and earlier now as the leaves lose their summer green. Just a month ago, the sun would still be hovering over the horizon at this time, but now Dean’s lucky he can see where he sets his feet. He knows this ground, though, knows the big rock sitting just at the crest of the slope, the crunch of dry grass and loose gravel on the bank, the crisscross of the wire fence. He walks along the perimeter, cooler bumping against his knee, looking for damage in the fencing and holes in the ground, burrows washed open by rainwater. The road isn’t visible from here, but sometimes, in the night, you can catch sight of headlights rounding a bend. Dad and Bobby aren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow, but he watches for them anyways. Sometimes they’re early. Sometimes they’re late. These trips aren’t always precise.

Dean leaps over the gully on the southern edge of their property and climbs through the sparse underbrush until he catches sight of the old log pile. It was already here when the old battalion, John and Bobby and Rufus, bought the place and there are a few planks beyond it that makes them think there used to be a cabin here. That’s long gone, but the log pile is still here waiting. It’s about two cars wide and one long and comes up to the bottom of Dean’s ribs. Good vantage and solid cover, exactly what they look for at a watch point.

Castiel sits on the edge, elbows on his knees, looking bored out of his mind.

“Try staying awake when you got second watch,” Dean calls out from a good distance away. “I swear, you only get second if you piss Ellen off.”

Castiel perks up, though Dean can’t really make out his face. “Hello, Dean.”

“Heya, Cas. Mind having some company?” Dean swings the cooler up onto the canvas-covered top before clambering up himself.

“Am I allowed? I was under the impression that I was supposed to be quiet.”

“Better loud than asleep.” Dean wipes his hands off on his jeans and pops open the top of the cooler. “Besides, the gully runs right along the bottom there. No one’s going to be riding up this side of town.”

“Oh,” Cas says, and Dean can practically hear the little frown on his face. “Then why post a watchman up here?”

“Gotta start the rookies off somewhere easy. The trees are thinner here too, so you get a clear view of the skies in case any choppers come this way.”

“Does that happen? Helicopters?” Cas asks, alarmed.

“Not yet, but you never know.” Dean hands over a beer and a slice of pie before pulling out his own dinner. He didn’t get a chance to eat before the meeting.

“Thank you,” Cas says, taking the pie, but he places the beer gently back inside the cooler. “But I don’t drink.”

“Seriously?” Everyone drank. It was practically the national past-time, like owning firearms and yelling at referees and deep frying anything that fit in the pot. “You’re not fromone of those prohibition towns down south are you? No booze, no guns, no condoms?”

“No, but I’ve never owned a firearm either,” Castiel shrugs as if it wasn’t important. That has Dean gaping, beer forgotten in his grip.

“You don’t have a gun.” It wasn’t possible.

Castiel shakes his head. “I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I did.”

“You’ve never even shot a gun?”

“I was a teacher. I taught teenagers about derivatives and limits and the laws of thermodynamics. When would I ever need to shoot a gun?” Castiel squints at Dean as if challenging him to suggest that even kids should be proficient in gun safety.

"So you don't actually no how to use that?" Dean asks flatly, pointing at the shotgun leaning carefully against the side of the pile.

"No."

"Then what the fuck were you planning on doing with it? Bash them over the head?"

"Well it's a good thing I'm starting off somewhere easy, isn't it?" Cas asks drily.

Inexplicably, Dean cracks up. He should be pissed. What kind of idiot just takes a gun handed to them without knowing how to use it? He's going to have to find out who sent Cas out without making sure he knew what he was doing. But the way that Cas talks about it, man, it just tickles him.

“My dad gave me my first shotgun when I was eight,” he says smugly, wiping tears from the corner of his eye. Castiel’s eyes widen and he places one awkward hand on Dean’s knee, too far and too light to be comforting.

“I am sorry for that.”

Dean stares at the hand. No one has ever had that reaction before. They laughed, or congratulated him, or looked at him with awe.

“It’s, uh, not a big deal, you know. Single parent household and I was the oldest, so I just got that responsibility, right?’ It was a rhetorical question, just a light way to end a statement, but Castiel bows his head and seems to contemplate the answer.

“I think I should learn to shoot a gun,” Castiel says finally.

“What?”

“I am twenty-four years old. If I learn to shoot, that’s three eight-year-olds who won’t have to.”

Dean doesn’t know what to say to that. That’s not how it works or You can’t apply basic mathematics to every problem or About time. He can see it, Cas in a sweater vest and Dockers standing in front of a room full of frightened children, shotgun in his white-collar hands.

“Tomorrow,” he says instead. “Best not to start you off in the dark.”

One night, just for one night, he sits next to a novelty - the only man in the United States who doesn’t know how to use a shotgun.

When Dad was deployed when Dean was eighteen, he remembers thinking they were lucky. Growing up an army brat, there was always the chance that Dad would have to leave them and with Mom gone, they’d be reverted to the state unless someone took them in. Just a year earlier and he and Sam would have ended up in foster care. As it was, they bounced around between Dad’s army buddies before landing back in Lawrence. Sam finished out high school and Dean got a job at a garage. Things were tough, even with Dad’s paychecks. Sam just got angrier and angrier until it started to infect Dean as well. There were moments when he wondered why Dad hadn’t left the army when they were younger. They were two kids under the age of ten with no family to take them in if something happened. Those doubts were quashed every time one of the guys still at base called to check in or when one of his paychecks came in the mail. They were fine. John knew what he was doing. They’d get by and when Dad got back everything would be back to normal.

Except it wasn’t. John never showed back in Lawrence. Four months Dean spent lying awake at night wondering where his dad had gone when he was supposed to be home. Then he gets a call telling him to pack his bags and head to South Dakota. Sam wouldn’t come. He was already knee-deep in law school applications, wet-eared vigilantism gleaming in his future.

So Dean showed up alone. Bobby was here, waiting, had clasped his shoulder and shown him the empty grasslands filled with potential. And Dean had though it would be over,the waiting. He was wrong. Dad never really came back from the war.

When John and Bobby go out on their trips, it’s almost like he’s eighteen again, holding down the fort. But when they get back, it hits him all over again that they’re never going to be that family, the one in the photographs – Sam’s baby cheeks jiggling with laughter, Mom’s golden hair tickling the back of his neck.

Bobby’s truck drives up the gravel path to the garage attached to the side of the big house, silent but for the crunch of the tires. It’s not natural. Eight cylinders shouldn’t be that quiet. Dean straightens the collar of his jacket before going out to meet them. A lone buck is tied up in the back, blood still slowly oozing from the single shot through its forehead.

John hops out of the driver’s seat, rounding the hood of the truck.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Not now, Dean.”

“I didn’t –“

“Come help me, boy!”

Dean jogs around to the other side just in time for Bobby to come slumping out of the passenger’s seat, blooding staining the bandages around his head a dark red.  “Shit! What happened?”

“I said not now,” John grunts, propping Bobby up against the side of the car.

Dean slings one of the old man’s arms over his shoulder and between the two of them, they manage to get him onto the couch in the foyer. And shit, things like this happen so often that the ratty old thing is already half-covered in suspicious stains.

Rufus limps out of the office, Chuck’s head barely peeping out from behind his shoulder.

“Aw, hell,” he curses, tossing the book in his hand onto the floor.

“Chuck,” Dean snaps, “there’s a deer in the truck. Grab whoever’s in the kitchen and get it sorted it out.”

“But,” Chuck protests, gesturing vaguely at the bleeding man on the couch.

“Now!”

Chuck scurries out the side door down the path to the canteen.

“Just a concussion,” Bobby slurs, batting away Rufus’s hands.

The cut on his forehead isn’t as bad as Dean thought it’d be. Lots of blood, but not too deep. Probably doesn’t even need stitches.

“You at least get the job done before you let some greenhorn knock you over the head?” Rufus asks, dabbing at the cut with a clean rag.

“What do I look like? An amateur?” Bobby grumbles, wincing slightly when Rufus presses down.

“Bad intell,” John says shaking his head. “Worse luck.”

“It was a three-man job,” Dean points out. He’s fucking pissed. He told them before they even left that it was more than two people could handle. They used to have Rufus before he blew out his knee and they won’t even fucking consider replacing him.

“This isn’t your place, boy,” John says, more tired than angry. “Keep your nose out things you don’t understand.”

“Kid’s just trying to help, John,” Bobby grunts.

“Dean, go get the doc. I want her to stitch this up,” Rufus says.

“I don’t need no fancy company surgeon to –“

“You’re the dumbass who got himself clocked in the first place!”

“Dean, go!”

Dean stares his father down for one second, two, but in the end, he caves, like he does every damn time. John knows best, knows what he’s doing, he tells himself. The old battalion’s been in the Middle East, seen things Dean can’t even imagine. It’s no wonder they don’t give a crap what he thinks.

He finds Marcy in the clinic and tells her what’s going on, but he doesn’t follow her back up to the big house. Instead, he veers off towards the canteen where he might actually be useful. If nothing else, he can see if Chuck needs a hand. The little guy’s never been that great with the bloody stuff, even if it’s only venison.

He’s right outside the back door when Ken hails him down.

“Dean! I’ve been looking for you. Tried your cabin but you weren’t home.”

“Oh yeah, usually I’m up at the big house during the day. What’s up?” Did he forget to tell them that yesterday? Damn. Give the talk a few too many times and he gets complacent.

“My boy and I just moved into our new place this morning and I was giving it a once over when I found a hole in the roof. It’s not a big deal – covered it up with some plastic – but I don’t want to see what happens when it rains.”

Dean pulls his pad out of his pocket, flipping to a new page and penciling in the problem.

“Alright, Dale’s our resident roofer, but he’s just getting over a bout of stomach flu. I’ll see if he’s up to it yet.”

“I can do it,” Ken offers, and Dean tries not to look skeptical.

“You ever done something like this before?”

“Not roofing, but I did most of the repairs on our place back in P&G – siding, drywall, that kind of stuff. I’m a handy guy. I’m sure I can figure it out. Besides, I always figured coming out here would mean picking up some new skills.”

Dean considers it for a moment. Ken’s right, in a way. They’ve all had to adapt to living in Sioux Falls. There’re no contractors out here waiting on the beck and call. It might be good to have more than one guy with a little experience patching their roves.

“Tell you what. Why don’t you swing by Dale’s place and see if he can show you the ropes? He’s in cabin 3D, just past Warehouse 9. You know where that is?”

“Yup. Remember it from the tour. I’ll head there now. Thanks, Dean.”

Dean gives him a little wave and turns around only to promptly run into a warm body.

“Cas!” he says, pushign himself off with a hand on the shoulder.

"Hello, Dean," Cas says, surprised, but if the small smile is anything to go by, he's perfectly alright with Dean's little mishap.

"What's up?"

"I've decided to stay."

It takes Dean a moment to process the words, but when he does, something warm bubbles up inside him. Cas is staying right here where he'll be safe and, hopefully, happy.

"That's great!"

Cas beams at him and Dean can't help but smile back. Suddenly this day doesn't seem as shitty.

"I'm going to see if they need any help in the kitchen? You wanna come with?" Dean offers, realizing only after the words are out of his mouth that asking someone to carve up a dead animal may not be the best pick-up tactic invented by man.

"Oh no," Cas declines. "I am simply fetching something for Tamara." He holds up a file of papers. "I should be getting back. Tamara has promised that I may teach a lesson onbees to the younger children."

Dean can't help but be disappointed to see Castiel go, but it's nice to see the man excited about something, even if it's over bugs. Not to mention the nice view from the back.

***

Cas finds him again on the back porch. If this keeps up, he's going to start thinking about it as their place and then it's just going to be cheese factories all around.

“Hey,” he says, tapping his arm. “Where’re you from?” It’s such a boring question, one of the standard set of meet and greets that got lost somewhere between the shell casingsand gun oil. Hell, it doesn’t matter, not really. They were all from some place or another and now there were all somewhere else. Singer's Salvage. A start point and an end point, and for most people that was all Dean wanted to know, and yet here he was, asking.

“My family? We’re from Lawrence, Kansas. That’s J&J land.”

And telling, apparently.

“Pontiac,” Castiel says. “Illinois. P&G.”

“Oh.” Dean screws up his face in the dark. “Lots of um, nice, um, plants there.”

Cas shakes in silent laughter, a nice rumble against his thigh. “Food processing plants. But most of the surrounding land is farms, so yes, I suppose.”

“You a farmboy?” Dean asks, trying to picture Cas milking cows or riding a tractor or running barefoot through rows of half-grown corn. He can’t.

“No, though my grandfather was. My father worked in advertising. Came up with the rabbit campaign for Solid Meals. One of my brothers was a plant biologist, but I took after my mother. I couldn’t even keep a house plant alive.”

“Really? You? Man, I had this picture of you with a schedule on your wall with everything from laundry to dishes to watering your spider plants and geraniums.”

“Well-” Cas seems to consider his words. “I did keep an agenda on my wall.”

“I knew it!” Dean crows, and it feels like a real triumph.

“But it was mostly for appointments and meetings and test days. When there’s only one person to do the chores, a schedule isn’t needed. I remembered to water the plants, I just never seemed to give them the right amount of water. I drowned the cactus one of my students gave to me on Earth Day.”

Dean sniggers. “Remind me to only buy you plastic flowers.”

They share a moment of silence, long enough for his words to run back through the ticker tape of his mind and allow him to build up a quiet, steady panic. “I um-” he says quickly, but the holes are already punched and the words are flapping in the dark for all to see.

“I would like that,” Cas cuts him off and Dean doesn’t relax, not for one second, not when there’s a hand burning a hole through the cuff of his ratty flannel overshirt. And it feels like a high school cliche, two boys sitting in the dark, finding their seven minutes in heaven. Except they’re not boys anymore and there isn’t a rowdy party going on downstairs, and Dean isn’t foolish enough to think of this as heaven.

But Cas’ hand clutched in the front of his shirt, his own fingers threaded through soft hair, and wide lips pressed against his are as close as he’s planning to get for a long, long while.

***

Books. Crates after crates filled with books. Damn it. He’d been hoping for food, meds at a reach. He’d even settle for clothing. But it's just stack after stack of goddamned books. Just see if they ever do business with Micky ever again. Asshole promised them something good was going to be in this shipping crate but it’s nothing but the same book over and over again. He kicks a pile in frustration, sending the paperbacks scattering across the flood.

Cas bends down and picks one of the hapless victims off the ground, caressing the cover like it was something precious, something alive, not just a useless pile of paper. Maybe they could use it for kindling. Or toilet paper. Chuck won’t be happy with it but he’d just have to compromise wouldn’t he?

“I read this,” Cas says thoughtfully, thumbing through the slightly damp, yellow pages. “In middle school, I think. We performed the first act for our parents.”

Dean glances at the cover. His knowledge of Shakespeare is basically limited to a bunch of famous one-liners. Romeo, Romeo, where the fuck are you Romeo? To be, or not to be, who the fuck cares? And in this case. “Et tu, Brute?” Dean mocks with a horrible French accent. “Which one were you?”

Castiel whacked his shoulder with the book.

“Ow!”

“Everyone read parts from every character, to keep it fair. And it’s Latin, not French.”

“Coulda fooled me,” Dean mutters sullenly, rubbing his shoulder. “Kiss it better,” he orders, proffering his arm.

Cas rolls his eyes but laid a gentle kiss on the round of his muscle before wrinkling his nose.

“You need a bath.”

“Only if you join me,” Dean waggles his eyebrows.

Castiel gives him a contemplative look and Dean’s face almost splits in half. He knows that look. That’s the look that says soapy hands on his skin that don’t belong to him. For a moment, he’s not disappointed in the books.

****************************************************************************

“How’s school?” Dean asks one night as they lay on his bed, lazy and sated, trailing his lips down Castiel’s spine, tasting the salt and the sweat.

Castiel hums happily, displacing Dean as he flips over onto his back. “It’s nice. ‘S been a while since I taught kids this young.”

Dean rests his chin on Cas’ stomach, happy trail tickling his chin. “They get fucking annoying once they hit puberty.”

“Yes, the teenagers are… trying.”

Dean chuckles before crawling up Cas’ body for a lazy kiss.

“So diplomatic,” he murmurs against sharp cheekbones.

Cas’ sigh tickles his ear. “It isn’t their fault.”

Dean flops back down onto his side of the bed where the sheets are still cool and dry. Cas doesn’t leave him alone for long though, draping himself all over Dean’s chest and tangling their legs together.

“You’re worried,” he says, pointy chin digging into Dean’s sternum.

“Yeah,” Dean admits. “About Jake. Don’t see him around the canteen much since he’s allergic to onions and garlic. Swung by his cabin a few times to see how they were doing and the kid never shows his face. How’s he doing in school?”

Cas thinks for a moment. “Okay, I suppose. He doesn’t talk much to the other kids, but they’re all at least three years younger than him.”

“Yeah, we don’t take runaways – the law considers us kidnappers if we do and then the feds get involved. Not many older folks show up with their families in tow, either. I mean, it’s gotta suck for Jake, you know? Live sixteen years in one place and then get uprooted a year before your life’s supposed to start?”

“Anything I can do?” Cas asks, running a soothing hand down Dean’s arm.

Dean thinks back to the teachers he had. In all his years, in all his schools, he can’t remember a single one who was anything close to being a friend. One or two had tried to talk to him, but he remembers thinking they should just mind their own damn business.

“Just, keep an eye on him.” Dean sighs, suddenly very tired. “Don’t single him out, but, I don’t know, tell me if something changes.”

“Alright,” Cas agrees. A warm, heavy body wiggles up his side until they’re curled towards each other face to face. “You’re a good man.”And that throws Dean for a loop. “What?”

“I wondered how this, any of this could work, and you told me it was because the people here want it to, which is true to an extent. But also, it works because you want it to, because you care about every single person here. You are a good man.”

Dean can feel the blush burning under his skin. “I’m just the MC,” he protests. “I’m not even part of the band. Rufus, Bobby, my dad, those are the guys that built this place. This was their big idea, coming home from the war. They run the supply chain, the salvage yard. I’m low man on the totem pole.”

“No,” Cas insists, taking Dean’s head between his hands and leaning their foreheads together. “This place would fall apart without you. You are a good man.”

“Stop saying that,” Dean protests, even though the words put a warm spark deep in his chest. Cas just kisses his nose.

“At least put those lips where I want them,” Dean says, and now even he knows he’s just pouting.

“And where would you like these lips? Here?” Cas kisses his mouth. “Here?” His neck. “Here?” His shoulder.

“Keep going and I’ll tell you when to stop.”

*****************************************************

You wouldn’t think that South Dakota would be the smuggling hub of the lower forty-eight, but here they are. They get most of their contraband from Canada – float it across Lake Superior and then squeeze it through the seam where northern P&G meets south GE somewhere in the middle of Minnesota. The border patrols don’t bother them and they get all manner of goods from the sketchier skin rags to the Quran, absinthe to water filters, peyote to birth control. It’s probably why Chuck always seems like he’s on the edge of having an aneurysm. They never should have brought the poor guy into the inner sanctum, but he’s known Chuck since before Sioux Falls and there was really no one else he could trust when they were first starting out.

Only about a dozen people know about the smuggling operations even now – the old battalion, Dean, Chuck, and a handful of caravan leaders. And now Castiel.  
Cas is, well, not cold, but definitely pragmatic. He never had a reason to get his hands dirty before, but he’s taken to Singer Salvage like an old drunk to whiskey. After a few lessons, he’s not a half-bad shot. Actually, he’s a fucking natural. It’s embarrassing, really, that Cas can hit a target nine times out of ten when Dean is trailing behind at six or seven. It’s those goddamn hands – slender and graceful and steady as a mountain.

That doesn’t mean Dean tells him everything, though.

“Where do they go?” Cas asks as they clean their guns, parts spread out neatly on their bed. Somehow this had become something they did together. It was their version of doing the dishes or riding bikes or other cute couple shit people did on tv.

Dean looks out at Bobby’s old Jeep left in the driveway after their last trip.

“Hunting,” he says and turns back to his rag and the bottle of gun oil. It’s a simple answer, easy to understand, and most everyone just accepts that explanation. But not Cas.  
“They leave for days on end and come back with a single kill.”

Dean pauses as he oils down the barrel of his Beretta. “Maybe they’re just shit hunters.”

*****************************************************************

“What do you mean Sam’s coming here?”

Dean’s heart thuds against his chest like it’s about to make a break for it. No fucking way. And there is no way dad signed off on that.

“He’s dying, Dean,” Bobby says. The older man swipes the trucker hat off his head, runs a hand over his bald patch. “Man’s got a right to want to see his son one last time before he breathes his last breath.”

Which is bullshit. Dad signed off on Sammy a long time ago. Acted like he only had the one kid after Sam decided to stay at Stanford. Yeah, Dean had been pissed at the time, too, because family should always come first, definitely before some fancy pants lawyering job and a pretty blond in high heels. But Sam was right not to come. This isn’t the life Dean wants for his little brother, who lost his cheeks but kept the dimples and the soft eyes of his younger self.  
Sam’s still fighting the good fight, just without the gun in his hand.

“I wanna talk to him,” Dean says, because he can’t let his dad drag Sam into all of this now.

Bobby shakes his head, just like the last time Dean asked, and the time before that. “He don’t want you seeing him like this, boy.”

Dean swallows. But Sam. Sam, he wants to see. He pretends that doesn’t put a lump in his throat.

****************************************************************************

“Tell me about it,” Dean says, tracing the moonlight patterns across Castiel’s back. The branches outside shift in the wind, sending shadows skittering across his sun-tanned skin.

“What?”

“Julius Caesar.”

“You want to know about Julius Caesar?” Castiel lifts an eyebrow and flips over so that Dean’s chin now lay on the jut of his hip bone.

“Well, you know,” Dean mutters, suddenly embarrassed. “It’s your jam. Your thing. And I mean, you listen to me ramble on about cars and music so maybe I thought you’d like to talk about it.”

After a moment of silence, Dean squirms away from under Castiel’s gaze to face the darkened back wall. “Forget it.”

A slim arm snakes around his waist, rubbing circles into his chest, determined to chase away his bad mood.

“Thank you, Dean,” Castiel murmurs against his spine, tucking his head between Dean’s shoulders. “Although I wouldn’t say history was my jam.”  
Dean can practically hear the air quotes.

“I did my phD in theoretical physics.”

Dean makes a face. He scowls even harder when Cas has the nerve to laugh at him.

“I won’t bore you with the details. About halfway through I realized that I enjoyed TAing classes much more than I did doing research. I didn’t really start studying history until I got my teaching certificate.”

“So lay it on me, teach.” Dean turns his head as far as he could. Cas peeks up at him through sooty lashes and pressed a kiss against his bare skin before rolling away to settle against the backboard. Dean doesn’t bother sitting up. He just slides over the sheets to insinuate his head on Castiel’s lap.

“What do you already know about Caesar?” Cas asks, running a hand through Dean’s hair, scratching lightly at his scalp. Dean would complain about being treated like a cat if it didn’t feel so good.

“Mmm,” he hums instead. “He was a general right? Conquered, like, everything. And then they put him in charge because he basically ruled everything already. And then his best friend stabs him in the back because he’s jealous or whatever.”

Castiel chuckles. “Who knew I’d end up with such a scholar?”

His tone was light but his words spoke of something deep and treasured and Dean snuggled closer against Castiel’s legs.

“His full name was Gaius Julius Caesar and he was a general, but what most people don’t know is that first, he was a priest.”

“Seriously?” Dean wrinkles his nose. He couldn’t imagine a priest riding off to war and keeping his head much less winning the whole damn thing. Priests were soft, squishy things, who spent too much time talking to their imaginary friend in the sky to garner any practical skills in the field.

“His Uncle made him the high priest of Jupiter.”

Dean snorts and closes his eyes, sinking into the feeling of light fingers in his hair and warm skin against his chest.

“But then his Uncle was defeated and Caesar was stripped of his title, his inheritance, and his wife’s dowry.”

“Harsh,” Dean mumbles.

“It’s what happens when you’re on the wrong side of a war.”

They’re both silent for a while after that. They both know the consequences should they be caught, should they lose. It’s why countries pour billions of dollars into their militaries and defences. And what do they have? They’re vultures going up against lions. Neither of them want to talk about it, though.

“So he was a priest, but he was married?”

“Most priests were, back then. The celibacy was really only a Christian thing, and only recently at that.”

“Hunh.”

“He refused to divorce his wife, even though she was on the wrong side of the political spectrum at the time and went into hiding until his mother’s side of the family intervened. After that, he joined the army.”

Dean yawns louder than he intended to and blinks blearily at Castiel’s fingers resting on his stomach. “Can we just do the highlights reel tonight?” he mumbles.

“Hmmm,” Castiel considers. “Caesar spent so much time at the court of King Nicomedes, trying to secure his fleet, that rumors of an affair dogged him for the rest of his life.”

That pulls a chuckle from Dean.

“He became a lawyer for a while and then got kidnapped by pirates.”

“Should’ve put that in the book,” Dean mutters.

“I didn’t know you were so interested in ancient Roman legal proceedings,” Castiel teases.

Dean rewards him with a lazy kiss against his hip.

“How about we save the rest for tomorrow?” Castiel offers and Dean agrees, but only in his head. He’s already asleep by the time Castiel slides down next to him.

*****************************************************************

Sam shows up on a Sunday.

No one even fucking bothers to tell Dean, so he’s completely blindsided when the four-door sedan crawls its way up the bank and out steps a man in a suit and tie. Except it’s not just a man. It’s Sam, his brother who he hasn’t seen since he vacated his life for the cause. Dean’s in the garage at the time, so Sam doesn’t see him, and he’s frozen there between Bobby’s truck and the tarp-covered Impala, watching like a creeper as Sam climbs the steps up into the big house.

Bobby lets him in, and there’s no surprise on his face. Bobby fucking knew Sam was coming and he didn’t tell Dean. Did they just forget he existed? Or does he just not matter enough to bring into their little club?

He considers barging in there, pulling Sam’s gigantic sasquatch body into his arms. But the curtains are closed and the door is locked and there couldn’t be a clearer ‘stay out’ if they had a giant neon sign. Dean watches helplessly from outside, waiting, maybe, for someone to throw him a few crumbs. Would Sam even ask about him? There are a million and one things he wants to ask about Sam. If he waits here, by Sam’s car, then his brother can’t leave without at least talking to him. Dean just needs a few words to let him know that Sam’s fine, that he’s safe.

He sees Cas out of the corner of his eye, but he’s not alone.

Dean has to blink twice before he processes that it’s Jake walking next to him.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas greets him. “We are going to shoot some skeets.”

Next to him, Jake throws a look like what the fuck is wrong with this guy and Dean feels offended for Cas’ sake even though he’s probably worn that same expression once or a dozen times.

“It’s skeet shooting, Cas,” Dean says. “The things you shoot are called clay pigeons.”

“Then why is it called skeet shooting?” Cas demands, scowling.

“I don’t know, buddy,” Dean admits, then turns to Jake. “You got any ideas?”

Jake doesn’t even deign to answer, just rolls his eyes. Dean gives up. Sam wasn’t this bad when he was going through puberty. Actually, yes he was, but he knew Sam, knew how the kid ticked. Jake? He had no fucking idea.

“Would you like to come?” Cas offers.

Dean doesn’t even need to watch Jake stiffen up to know that’s a no-go. Besides he has to stay here.

“Nah, you two have fun. Dinner’s on me if you manage to outshoot him, Jake.”

“Dinner is free,” Jake mutters, and Dean’s so astounded that the kid spoke to him that he doesn’t say anything in return.

The two wander off and the last thing he hears is Cas point out, “But it doesn’t look like a pigeon.”

He leans against the side of the sedan. A fucking hybrid. There are little solar panels on the backs of the side-view mirrors. What could those even power? The out of gas light? Wouldn’t that be ironic.

The sun rises overhead, but the ground stays frozen no matter how much Dean scuffs his feet. What would they do if he did go in? He has the key. They know he has the key. Would they kick him out? Or maybe it’s all just a test, see if he has the guts to walk in on his own two feet?

“Fuck,” Dean mutters, kicking the brand-new tires.

“Dean?”

And of course that’s the moment when Sam chooses to walk out of the house.

“Sam,” Dean manages, his throat clicking shut. God, Sam’s gotten big. He’s at least three inches taller now and his lanky frame has filled out into something frankly terrifying. But he’s still Sam. “You, uh, you look good.”

“Thanks.” Sam fidgets with the folder in his hand for a moment before tucking it under his arm and reaching out.

Dean doesn’t let him take one more step before tugging his baby brother into a hug.

“Christ, you’re huge,” he mutters before finally letting go.

“Yeah. Did you get shorter?” Sam asks.

“Bitch.” Dean smacks him in the arm.

“It’s good to see you again,” Sam says, smiling sheepishly. “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean shrugs. He could point out that it’s not really his fault they haven’t laid eyes on each other in seven years, but that’s not what he wants, not right now with Sam standing right in front of him. “You doing okay? Still working at Sandover?”

“Wow,” Sam says, gawking a little. “I’m surprised you remember that.”

Dean’s chest clenches tight. Of course he fucking remembers. He’s been watching the damn local news out of DC every day for seven years just for the chance of a mention of that name.

“Yeah, I’m uh, I’m junior partner now.”

“That’s great!” Dean plasters on a smile even though he knows that the higher Sam climbs the bigger target he’ll make.

“Yeah.” Sam smiles, too, but there’s an edge to it, some hidden meaning. Dean’s eyes travel down to the envelope still held under his arm.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, nothing,” Sam says, and now Dean knows something’s up.

“Sam,” he says warningly.

“Just something Dad gave me.”

Suddenly it all makes sense. Sam isn’t here for some long lost prodigal father-son reunion. Dad wants something from him or Sam wants something from Dad. Even worse, it’s something they don’t want Dean to know about which means that it has to be dangerous.

“Don’t do this, Sam. It’s bad enough that you’re alone in the lion’s den. Don’t do something stupid that’ll paint a target on your back,” he warns.

“Dean, I’m not seventeen anymore,” Sam snaps, smile disappearing from his face.

“Whatever it is, it’s not worth you life!”

“Maybe you should let me decide what is and what isn’t worth it.”

Dean glares at Sam who doesn’t back off, not an inch. He snatches for the envelope, but Sam knows him too well or he’s been keeping up his training because he spins out of the way, putting himself between Dean and the car and slipping into the driver’s seat before Dean can make another grab at it.

“It really was good to see you again,” Sam says, voice slipping through the space at the top of the window before that shuts, too.

“Tell me what is going on!” Dean shouts, but the engine starting drowns out his voice and Sam drives away without a backwards glance.

Dean watches as the car disappears past the gates and behind the trees before storming into the house. The door’s unlocked now. Whoop de doo.

“I’m going in to see him and there’s nothing you can do to stop me,” he growls when Bobby appears in the living room. The older man holds up his hands and lets him pass into what was once a parlor. Now, it’s crammed with books about every aspect of the law and the loopholes to get around them. Ensconced in an armchair in the center is his dad.

“Are you even dying?” Dean demands.

John looks at him with weary eyes.

“What do you want, Dean?”

“The truth! I want you to tell me the goddamn truth for once in your life. Why did you want to see Sam? What are you getting him in to?”

“Watch your mouth, boy,” John snaps, a bit of his old fire flashing in his eyes.

“No. I am not a boy, anymore. When it’s your own life you’re risking, fine. Whatever. You don’t have to tell me, but Sam is my family as much as he is yours. More, even. I have a right to know what the hell is going on!”

Dean heaves in a breath and he’s seized with a moment of panic. He’s never spoken to his dad like this, never even lifted his voice. Not once.

“Just tell him, John,” Rufus says, and for the first time, Dean notices him leaning against the window. “Tell him or I will.”

For a solid minute, Dean thinks that John will hold out, but then he crumples, turning his face away from the light. The wrinkles in his skin seem deeper in the shadow.

“I didn’t call him. Sam came to me.”

A sudden hurt rips through Dean’s gut.

“That lobbying firm of his, they’re not getting anywhere on the big name issues. Took the boy this long to realize they aren’t planning to anytime soon. Too risky, biting the hand that feeds ya.” John snorts. “Those rose-colored glasses are finally coming off. He wants to do something, so I gave him so info that we need.”

“You’re going to get him killed!”

“Sam’s smarter than you and me,” John scoffs. “He knows when to back off.”

Dean watches uselessly as John gets up, conversation clearly over. He groans as he stands, cracking his back.

“And for all that you care, yeah, I am,” John adds before shuffling out of the room.

It takes Dean a while to figure out which question his dad was answering.

*********************************************************

Castiel pries the bottle gently out of Dean’s hand.

“Izall shit,” Dean slurs, letting his head fall onto Cas’ shoulder, buring his face in his neck. “Alluvit.”

Cas shushes him with a hand on the back, but Dean doesn’t want to be quiet. He’s been quiet all day. Respect, they call it. Why do the dead fucking care how much noise you make? They’re gone. They can’t hear you.

Dean can still see him lying there in his wooden box. Gotta say good-bye to a dead body because that’s the way things’re done. He can see his rough jacket and his neatly combed moustache. He can see his dark skin gone grey. Fucking Kenneth Tulley. Didn’t even die by a bullet. Fell off a goddamn roof. Never should have sent him to Dale.

“’M tellin’ you, Cash. Izall shit. ‘M shit too.” Strong arms lift him off the porch bench.

“Come on, Dean,” Cas says. “Walk for me.”

Dean shuffles his legs so that his feet are vaguely under him.

“Not you, though,” he mumbles, stumbling across the street. “Yer not shit.”

Cas fumbles with the key to Dean’s cabin door, but he manages it because he’s awesome. Not like Dean.

“Me, I’m shit,” he repeats, just so Cas gets it, so that it really sinks into his skull. “Yer too good fer me.”

“Yes, I am,” Cas sighs, propping Dean up against the wall for a moment so he close the door behind them. “I should be married to some rich middle-eastern sheik. One that buys me islands for my birthday. Bacon cheeseburgers every night.”

“Yesh,” Dean agrees, slumping back against Cas’ shoulder as they head towards the bed. “E’ry night.”

Cas should have cheeseburgers every night. He deserves them. He should live in some palace in Dubai that has good water pressure and silk curtains and white tigers lounging on the Persian rugs. He shouldn’t be stuck here in this goddamned town in this goddamned country where everyone dies. Everyone. Over and over and over.

“Cas,” he says as his back hits the sheets. “Love you.”

“What?”

Dean rolls over, cocooning himself in his blankets. “’M shit but I love ya.”

************************************************************

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Dean barks, rushing out of the house, screen door slamming behind him.

“This little shit tried to sell us out,” Ava spits.

“The hell are you talking about?”

“We were lying low, waiting for a patrol to pass when this little shit pops out of nowhere and starts hollering at them ‘cause there are smugglers hiding under the turnpipe! Barely got out of there with the cargo intact,” Luis says.

Dean looks down between them where Jake is kneeling in the dirt. There’s a nasty cut across his temple and a bruise blooming across his jawline.

“That true?” Dean asks. He expects Jake to deny it. He expects, hopes really, that this is all just one big misunderstanding. Then again, he really should get that optimism wrung out of him some day.

“Yeah,” Jake spits. “I did it. I was trying to get out of this stinking hell hole.” He glares up at Dean, like he’s itching to get hit. And Dean’s not gonna lie. It is damned tempting. He knew Jake was having problems, especially after his dad died, but Cas was getting through to him. They were talking again, at least, and Dean thought that would be enough.

Clearly, he was wrong.

“Lock him in the shed,” Dean orders. “Everyone just needs a chance to cool down.”

“Like hell!” Jane argues. “What this punk needs bullet in the brain.”

“Ava,” Luis warns.

“What? He almost got us all killed today. What happens the next time he gets it in his head that he’s willing to fork over a couple heads on a platter to get back in good with P&G, huh?”

“Ava!” Dean orders. “Back off. This isn’t your decision. He goes into the shed for tonight and we’ll figure out what to do with him tomorrow. Go on. Get out of here. Clear your goddamn head.”

He glares at her until she turns away with a ‘Fuck you’ and heads away towards the cabins. Dean turns his attention to Luis.

“You going to give me flack on this?”

He’s infinitely grateful when Luis shakes his head.

“Good. Now go!”

Goddamn, he should never have let Jake go. How did he not see this coming? Cas had said he was doing better, so when Jake had asked to be given some responsibilities, Dean had thought, why not? After all, Dean had been a mess before he had to buckle down and take care of Sam. Besides, Jake wasn’t going to bond with any of the kids, so why not give it a go with some of the younger adults? Ava’s just a few years older than him. This had just been a supply run, pure and simple. No contraband. No smuggling. It should have been quick and easy. He knows this is all on him, but he can’t help but wonder what Jake was thinking.

Later, in his tent, curled up around Cas’ back an hour before his sentry shift starts, he asks, “How did Brutus do it?”

The man beside him stirs, turns over, their breath mixing from inches apart. “How did Brutus kill Caesar?” Cas asks, because he’s a freak who’s coherent even when his idiot boyfriend wakes him up in the middle of the night. “With a knife, I believe, and the aid of many other senators.”

Dean doesn’t answer and Cas must sense that something’s wrong.

“What happened?”

“It was Jake,” Dean snarls, gripping the pillow so tight that he can feel the fabric tearing under his fingertips. “He tried to sell out Ava and Luis.”

Cas sucks in a sharp breath, scoots over and lays a cool kiss against Dean’s brow even though Dean knows he's got to be hurting on the inside.  Pragmatic.  A cool head.  Cas could do this, Cas could keep them all together.  “When Brutus first joined the senate, before the war, he was part of the Optimates, a Conservative Faction aligned against Caesar. When Civil War broke out, Brutus fought against Caesar. It wasn’t until they were completely defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus that Brutus wrote a letter apologizing. Caesar forgave them, and only then were they considered friends.”

Dean stiffens, shrinking in on himself. “So you’re saying it was Caesar’s own damned fault for trusting the guy in the first place?”

Castiel sighs and Dean knows he’s rolling his eyes at the dark. “No. I’m saying that Brutus was never Caesar’s friend. Not truthfully. The ability to show mercy is an admirable trait, but Brutus’ betrayal was not a sudden, spontaneous decision. In his own mind, he thought he was doing the right thing.”

“How can killing someone ever be doing the right thing?” Dean spits into the worn fabric. He knows that Cas isn’t the one he’s angry with, but sometimes he doesn’t need some lesson in old-ass philosophy. Sometimes he just needs the world to be black and white and have some clean-cut answers.

“Dean, we run the risk of killing someone every time we go out on watch with a loaded shotgun at our side.”

“Not when they’re helpless! Not when they’re unarmed and outnumbered.”

Castiel is quiet for a while. His hand idly strokes up and down Dean’s side and Dean pulls it close against his chest, stopping it, keeping it.

Cas’ voice is deep and steady as he asks, “Are we still speaking of Jake?”

Dean sags. All the carefully constructed masks come apart when Castiel touches his face. “Ava wants to kill him.”

A thumb ghosts over his cheekbone.

“Once word gets out, I don’t think she’ll be the only one.” To keep them safe. To keep them all safe. What’s one boy’s life for the greater good, right? Except it’d be murder, plain and simple.

Cas cups a hand over Dean’s cheek. “I have always known you to do the right thing.”

And then, “Everyone looks to you for a reason.”

Times like these, though, Dean really wishes they didn’t.

*****************************************************************

Dean drives Jake to the edge of P&G himself because he doesn’t trust someone else to do it. He was right. Ava’s wasn’t the only call for blood in the morning light, but they’d never executed anyone yet and they weren’t going to start now. Dean doesn’t know how they did it, but between the two of them, he and Cas managed to make enough people see reason so that when they put it to a vote, Jake got to keep his life.

His life at Sioux Falls, however, was effectively over. If he wanted out so bad, then they might as well let him go.

Dean pulls off onto the shoulder and cuts the engine.

“Here.” Dean pulls out a wrapped package from his pocket. “It’s from Cas.”

Jake stares at the package, but doesn’t move to take it. Instead, he reaches for the door.

“Hey!” Dean snaps, and apparently he’s still scary enough to make the kid freeze. Dean grabs Jake’s hand and presses Cas’ gift against his fingers until he goddamn takes it. “That man fucking saved your life, you little piece of shit.” He’s gratified to see the kid duck his head in shame.

“There’s a town about three miles that way. You follow this road and you can’t miss it.”

Jake doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at him.

“Take care of yourself. Stay out of trouble,” Dean says gruffly, more for Cas’ sake than Jake’s. “Now get out of my truck."

Cas waits for him on the woodpile with two beers and one of those gas station packets that Dean hasn’t seen in about two years. It’s crinkly and dry and smells like wax, but Dean could cry for the sweet, gooey imitation of pie. He doesn’t say anything and neither does Cas. They sit, watching the tree line and the open sky, hands linked together in the middle. In his other hand, Dean holds a Hostess relic of the past and Cas, Cas fingers his Beretta.

*****************************************************************

Bobby leaves on a hunting trip by himself, and that more than anything else tells Dean exactly how bad his dad is getting. John stays holed up in the big house nowadays, refusing to see Dean, refusing to see anyone really, other than Bobby and Rufus. Dean’s questions are probably getting on Rufus’ nerves seeing as how the old man makes sure that he’s smoking every damn time Dean gets within ten feet of him. But what the hell is he supposed to do? Let his dad waste away without a goddamn word?

“I can’t talk to you about this,” Marcy says with a sigh. “Doctor-patient confidentiality.”

“Damn it, Marcy, no one’s going to sue you at here. He’s my dad and he won’t even see me!”

She sighs, bites her lip, and Dean knows that’s her tell.

“Please, Marse. I just need to know if there’s anything I can do.”

Finally, she relents. “It’s his liver.”

Dean seizes on it. “That’s good, right? You don’t need a whole liver! He just needs a piece. Someone just has to give him a piece.”

Marse shakes her head and gives him a despairing look. “I can’t do that kind of operation out here. You’d need two fully stocked surgical suites and we just don’t have those resources. I mean, if your dad went to P&G…”

She trails off and she knows as well as Dean that there’s no way in hell John Winchester is stepping foot in a corporate hospital.

So Bobby goes off on a hunt by himself. Dean offers to go with him. Begs, really, but the old man is insistent. It’s a one man job. A cakewalk. He needs Dean here, holding downthe fort. And that’s all Dean is good for, isn’t it? Holding things together by threads and purse strings.

But then Bobby comes back not a day later with a man in the passenger seat.

And this man comes with an offer, an offer that could save John.

*****************************************************************

"Why did you say no?" Cas demands, chasing after Dean.

"That's not what we do, Cas." Dean heads towards his cabin. He just wants to take a long, hot shower to wash this day off his skin.

"Really? Because I thought helping people was exactly what we did."

Dean whirls around so fast that Cas nearly crashes into him.

"We wouldn't be helping them! We'd be causing chaos."

"How? Our system works, Dean. How could expanding it be a bad thing?"

"You can't force this on folks who don't want it," Dean says, gesturing at the people and buildings around them. "If ChiCorps wants to break away and create something better, then they have to give folks a choice. Stop handing down edicts from up on high without any input from their people. Because if we just hand them a rule book and say have at it, that's exactly what it'll be. All they'll get is a new form of oppression."

"Maybe at first, but after a while they'll get used to it. They'll see how much more freedom they have and they'll use it! Yes, it would be ideal for them to come to it themselves, but why can't we just open the door for them?"

Dean throws up his hands and growls his frustration. He can't even put into words how bad an idea ChiCorps's proposal would be. Singer's Salvage doesn't work when people don't want it to. Cas saw what happened to Jake, to Sam. Why couldn't he just see this?

"Just trust me on this, okay? It's a bad idea."

"But you’d have access to a hospital, a real hospital, and your dad…”

"No, Cas," Dean cuts him off. "This is not up for discussion." He turns away and storms into his cabin without another word. He lets the door slam shut behind him and strips off his shirt. The water pounds away the sweat and dust and taste of bile at the back of his throat. He hates arguing with Cas. He knows the guy's heart is in the right place, that all he wants to do is help, but he just doesn’t understand. Dean’s not going to sell out. John wouldn’t thank him for it, even if they managed to save his life. It would be a bigger betrayal to accept the offer.

When he shuts off the water and walks out of the bathroom, Cas is there on his bed, head in his hands.

"I don't like it when we fight," Cas grumbles.

Dean sighs and drapes his wet towel over the back of a chair before slipping over the covers to sit next to Cas. Almost immediately, the other man slips under his arm, wrapping himself around Dean's waist, head pillowed on his chest. For a moment, Dean thinks that this is the end of it, that Cas is letting him win, just this once. But then Cas twists around, so that he's looking up at Dean, frustration written in the lines of his face.

"Have you never thought about expansion? The salvage operation is of limited scope, but with a few acquisitions you could double, triple the number of people we have now."  
Dean drags a pillow behind his back and settles in. If he's going to have this talk, he might as well be comfortable.

"I mean, yeah, of course it's crossed my mind. What if the state, what if the country, what if the entire world worked together and stopped fighting? What if everyone gave everyone else the same consideration they gave themself? What if people started treating people how they would like to be treated instead of how they expect to be treated? That'd be awesome, but it's all just a bunch of what-ifs, Cas. The thing is, this, what we've got going here, it only works because we're small-scale."

Dean runs a hand down Cas' back when he grumbles wordlessly.

"I know every single person who lives here and I can tell you who I think is the best cook, the best plumber, hell, the best chemical engineer, but you push out those borders? There are hundreds of thousands of people in P&G alone. No way would I be able to pick out who be best to run the school board or the environmental commission or the judicial courts. Votes would go to the people with the most money, the most power and it'll be the same thing all over again."

"So don't make the same mistakes they did," Castiel argues, one hand toying with the edge of Dean's t-shirt. "There are millions of people in this country, Dean, and we're only saving a handful at a time."

"We're doing the best we can, Cas," Dean sighs.

********************************************************************************************

Dean flicks on the television.

There’s a parade today in Washington D.C. Men in kilts and women in dresses and horses and carriages all drowning in a sea of St. Patrick’s Day green. Everyone smiling and dancing and laughing and you’d never even know there was something wrong under all of that. The nasty stuff never makes it onto the news. There’s no one reporting on the hundreds of homeless people tossed in jail for walking down a sidewalk. No headlines about the toxic mold growing in the elementary school ceiling. Not a word on the bribes that keep the House in a deadlock on every issue from gun control to prison reform to patent law.

Sometimes, Dean lets himself believe that the world is as bright and shiny as the anchor man’s gleaming, white teeth. But it’s all just a show. A few layers of bleach over a rotten yellow core and they’re all trapped inside.

Not just Sam, but all of them. They’ve got P&G to the south and the east, Exxon-Mobil above them, then GE above them. The west is a motley of Pepco and Darden and Shaw – company towns grown into company counties and then company states. Not a thing on the street not owned by some member of the board of directors.

The parade ends and the local football team takes the screen. They win. They lose. They aren’t making it to the regional playoffs.

Dean doesn’t even know if Sam’s name would show up if he’s caught, especially not now that he’s doing something shady for their dad. The things that the old battalion does, shit, Dean doesn’t even know the details. It’s dark, he knows that much. They come back with cuts and bruises and gunpowder on their hands. Dirty work.

*********************************************************************************************

John dies without a fuss in the middle of the night when the world is asleep. He dies alone because Marcy said he’d have at least another month. Old man probably would have preferred it that way. He never liked people seeing him when he was down and out.

There’s no funeral, no wake. Hell, half the people don’t even know what he looks like. All John Winchester gets is a wooden box, a big hole, and a single stone marker to let people know he ever existed.

*****************************************************************

The snow thaws and the world is muddy brown all around.

Bobby and Rufus rumble back to base long after sundown, hours after they said they'd be back.

“Where the hell you been?” Dean gripes as soon as they step out of the jeep.

“Shut your trap, boy,” Rufus snaps. “Hunting’s hard enough as a three-man job.” He grabs a duffel out of the back - flat, sagging, and empty - and stomps his way into his cabin.  
Bobby sighs, runs a hand through his thinning hair. “Ain’t gonna be easy, replacing your daddy.”

For a moment, Dean is ready, ready for Bobby to ask the question he’d been expecting ever since they came back two instead of three. But then the old man just claps him on the back, not even looking him in the eye as he trudges past towards the cabins.

Cas comes back late, too, that night, smoke on his skin and whiskey on his lips.

“You get your hands on some Johnny Walker and didn’t think to share?” Dean asks, pulling back.

“It’s not mine to share,” Cas says cryptically, climbing into bed without taking off his socks. Dean hates the sweaty-soft texture against his calves, but it’s a hell of a lot better than Cas’ icy cold feet.

He doesn’t think much of it until the next time Rufus and Bobby leave for a hunt. He saw Cas packing a bag in the morning and just assumed it was for a routine run, but he sees the same bag in the backseat of the jeep just before Cas stomps his way down their porch, boots hitting the dirt road with a thud.

“Where are you going?” Dean asks, incredulous.

Cas gives him a blank, unreadable look.

“Hunting.”

They come back on time that night. Cas doesn’t say anything, doesn’t wash up or eat dinner, just crawls into bed while the sun still hangs above the horizon, face buried in the thin padding of their pillows. Dean looks down on a stranger, someone he doesn’t know how to talk to, doesn’t know if he can touch. He stays on his side of the bed that night and in the morning, he is alone.

*****************************************************************

Castiel finds him out on the woodpile.

“You didn’t have a shift tonight,” he says, wrapping his coat around him. It’s getting warmer now, but he still insists on wearing the ugly old trench he found in the bottom of one of Ash’s boxes.

“Risa wanted to trade. She wasn’t feeling good.”

Cas climbs up onto the worn tarp.

“I’m surprised to see you here. I thought this post was just for the rookies.”

Dean laughs. It’s small, but it’s there. “Yeah, well. I just wanted to get away from it all. Be a lone for a bit.”  
“Oh.” Cas stills. “I’ll go.”

“No.” Dean catches his hand. And Jesus, he’s wearing gloves in the middle of April. “You can stay. Just, don’t talk.”  
“Alright.”

They sit in silence for a while. The sky goes darker and darker until it’s a pitch black expanse over the wild branches and the new leaves. The stars are out in full force.

“No matter what happens down here, they’re always the same,” he says, breaking his own directive.

“Hm?”

“The stars.” And now he feels like an idiot, talking about the stars. Next thing you know, he’s going to be reciting sonnets about the flowers of spring and the color of Cas’ eyes. Though, to be far, Cas’ eyes are really fucking blue.

“But they do change,” Cas says, leaning against Dean’s side. “Every moment there are stars blowing up or condensing or collapsing into black holes. We just don’t see it. Nothing in this universe is truly stagnant.”

Dean chuckles. “Forgot you were a teacher for a moment.”

“No matter how much they change, they’ll always be beautiful,” Cas adds.

“Is that your expert opinion?”

“Yes.”

*****************************************************************

Dean flicks on the monitor. Mr. Anchor Man flashes his too-white teeth. The President of Namibia is visiting today. The motorcade is very impressive. Dean tunes him out and goes about cleaning out the boxes in his closet. He promised Cas he would do it a few weeks ago and it’s finally coming back to bite him in the ass.

It’s old stuff, things he brought with him when he first left his old life to start something new. There are clothes that haven’t fit him in a few years that he should probably throw in the community pile. There are hair products that have congealed into opaque solids. There’s a photo album that he keeps firmly shut as he relocates it to the nightstand drawer.

He glances up and Mr. Anchor Man’s smile is gone.

Then he realizes what got his attention.

“A young man from Nebraska has become a national hero today by uncovering a plot that could severely undermine our national security.”

Jake’s face stares grimly out at him from the photo box in the top right corner.

“Jake Talley called in a tip that a local lawyer was gathering information for a Syrian terrorist group.”

Dean’s blood turns to ice.

“Sam Winchester, a junior partner at the Sandover Group, a local non-profit lobbying firm, has been charged with treason. Authorities are investigating the other employees of Sandover to see if they had any connection. A cache of sensitive documents was found at Winchester’s local D.C. apartment.”

No. Dean’s brain is stuck on the one word. No. No. No.

“Dean?”

This can’t be happening. No. This can’t be real. Sam is smart. Sam wouldn’t get caught. No. No.

“Dean!”

He doesn’t realize he’s struggling until a pair of arms wraps themselves firmly around him. He’s yelling, too. Sam’s name, over and over, like he can somehow be heard all the way on the east coast. He should never have let Sam go. He should have dragged him out of that dorm room, forced him to come to Sioux Falls where he would have been safe.

National security threat. The words blare across his consciousness. That means federal prisons. That means Homeland Security Act. Oh god, he had nothing to do with Syrian terrorists. Why would Jake tell them that he was in league with Syrian terrorists? Or was that the FBI’s spin? Was that P&G’s spin?

This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t. It wasn’t.

**************************************************************************

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Castiel had said, standing in the doorway like the gatekeeper to Dean’s nightmares. He hadn’t seen him come in.

“Sorry’s not enough.” He can’t even look Cas in the eye.

He’d always been able to look Cas in the eye. But that had been fascination, awe, something other and more. Now all that he can summon is resentment, resentment that Jake was still alive and because of it Sam is dead.

“Dean.” Cas lays a hand on his shoulder and peered around to look at him in the face. He looked devastated, but Dean wasn’t in the mood to deal with his emotions, much less Cas’. The door shook as he slammed Castiel against the aging wood.

“This is your fault! I should have listened to Ava, but a bullet through that son of a bitch the moment we found out what he did.”

Cas held onto Dean’s wrists but didn’t try to break his hold. “Don’t say that,” he said, quiet like a prayer.

“I’ll say whatever the fuck I want,” Dean snarled. He let go. He couldn’t deal with this right now, not with Cas looking at him like there was something to be sorry for.

Chuck hid the good liquor in a lockbox buried under a pile of junk out behind the run-down garden shack. Dean found it months ago, and he finds it again now. He doesn’t know what Cas does after he leaves, and really, he doesn’t care.

Cas never knew Sam, only saw him that one time, a name, a face to be remembered, but he never knew Sam. Never saw the hundreds of different bitchfaces Sam had for every occasion. Never listened to him complain over the deprioritization of green foods in the country’s federally relegated diets. Never saw the light in his eyes when he said "No, Dean. You have to go, but I have to stay."

Cas never knew Sam and Dean can’t help but hate him for it.

Dean brushes the tears out of his eyes. He’s so fucking useless, sitting here drinking in the middle of goddamn South Dakota while his baby brother rots in a federal jail cell. People go in and they don’t come out again.

There's a man waiting for him outside the cabin door, with rumpled clothes and beer on his breath. Dean's vision waivers. It’s not tears. It’s just dust. Just dust and ashes.

"I'm sorry," Dean says. "It's not your fault. It's mine, it's mine, it's mine."

*******************************************************************

Fifty-nine people die in a riot in the outskirts of Ex-Em. None of the official channels carry the news, but word manages to trickle the fifty miles or so over state lines and into their ears.

“God-damned civilians,” Dean mutters, wiping down the barrel of his .45. “Going at the corps head on, like the Grays are just going to let them walk up in their faces and shoot them point blank. Fucking idiots.”

Cas doesn’t say anything, but that’s not unusual these days. That’s okay. Dean can talk enough for the both of them. Except, he knows something’s wrong, that there’s something bottled up inside Cas that’s building and building and is going to find its way out one way or another. He’s seen it happen. People go quiet, then they’re wandering off into the sunset with an AK and a half-dozen magazines looking to shoot or get shot.

Cas was never a man for the assault rifle. He likes the smaller guns, the P938, the Glock 19. His fingers practically dance over his little black Colt Mustang as he strips her parts and wipes them down.

At first, Dean thought it was because he could almost pretend the gun wasn’t there. Out of sight, out of mind. He’s not so sure anymore. Cas still looks the same - smooth cheeks, big eyes, pretty lips - maybe a bit more muscle in the shoulders, but there’s a hardness underneath the angelic facade. Just like that bit of metal hiding under his sweaters and vests.

Dean thinks Cas might like it when people underestimate him.

“No,” Cas says, sudden enough that Dean nearly fumbles his bottle of gun oil.

“No?”

“They are not fucking idiots. They were very brave.”

Dean flings his rag to the side. “Yeah. Right. Brave enough to get themselves killed. Number one rule of being a soldier, Cas. Live to fight another day.”

“This wasn’t about living or dying, Dean.” Cas slips the last piece of his gun in place and lays it lightly on the table. “This was about overcoming the institutionalized fear the corporations enforce. If more people would put stand up to the-”

“If more people stood up to the private security forces, they’d all be dead!”

Dean glares down at Cas. Cas glares right back.

“They’re no good to anyone once they’re dead,” Dean hisses. The door swings shut behind him with a quiet slap and no one tries to follow him.

*****************************************************************

They’re out of toilet paper. Again. Which shouldn’t be possible given the Charmin truck they knocked over just last month. Chuck’s probably hoarding it somewhere, ready to bring it out on a bad day like a two-ply beam of light piercing through the clouds.

Dean reaches into the basket and comes up with a handful of thin pages - beige paper printed with row after row of tiny black print.

And normally, normally Dean would wipe his ass, toss the pages, and get on with his life, but a name catches his eye.

The fault, he reads, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Dean snorts. So that’s where all those books went. His grip on the page crinkles the edge. He could save it, fold it in half and store it in his pocket until that night, when Cas comes in from his shift on watch. Then, Dean could pull it out, smooth out the creases, recite to him great Cassius’ monologue. A couple months ago, they both would have laughed at that - the words of the great bard himself relegated to double duty - but now. Now things are different.

Dean cleans himself up and pulls on his pants.

“Here’s to you, Gaius,” he mutters, shutting the door behind him.

*****************************************************************

He’s back.

Dean was having an evening to himself, fixing up the Impala, when his entire fucking year is ruined by his reappearance.

Cas and Bobby left on a hunting trip and they brought the sleazy snake oil salesman with his black suit and shiny shoes and snobby accent. Just like last time, he looks at the camp like he’s managed to step through a portal into a world made of sewage and he looks like Dean like he’s deciding whether he goes in the compost or the recycling.

“What the hell is he doing here?” Dean snarls, tossing his oily rag onto the edge of the hood but keeping his other hand gripped tight around the wrench.

“Calm down, boy,” Bobby says, emerging from the other side of the car. “Hear him out.”

“I already did and I want nothing to do with his little schemes.”

“Ah ah ah,” Crowley says smugly. “Not so little anymore. Today I’ve brought the big guns. Two words. Exxon-Mobil.”

“What’s Ex-Em want with us?”

They’re nowhere near Ex-Em’s central holdings and at least fifty miles from any of their current territories. Sure, there’re a few Ex-Em folks in Sioux Falls, but they’ve got a few from every corp in the midwest. Nothing to make Ex-Em stick out.

“Oh, I’m sure they want nothing to do with your,” Crowley says, fingers dancing through the air, “merry band. But I, personally, have a proposition.”

Dean wouldn’t even be sitting here listening to this crap if Bobby, Rufus, and Cas hadn’t stepped out of that car with Toady McSuspicious-As-Hell.

Crowley’s offer boils down to this: as head of PR, he’s got access to all the firepower - the armored vehicles, the tear gas, the hollow-point bullets - and the manpower to use it all. He can take down Exxon-Mobil from the inside out.

“And after that, the dominoes will fall,” the man says with a flourish. The chain reaction should take down most of the west coast and what Bobby called Hunting, Crowley called Outreach. They’ve been priming the midwest like laying a long wick to a powder keg.

“Revolution,” Crowley breathes, hellfire burning the corner of his eyes. And he wants them as the figurehead, because the people won’t bow down for a squat little one-percenter, but for the heroes of the old battalion, they will bend like willows.

Dean looks around and doesn’t recognize the faces looking back at him. They knew. They all knew exactly what Crowley was going to ask of them and they all approved.

“Hell no,” Dean snarls. Bobby should know better, goddamnit. They’d seen it first hand. The soldiers, they signed up for that shit, knew there was a chance they weren’t making it home, but the world wasn’t populated by soldiers. There were civilians everywhere, men and women and children who’d only ever shot at paper targets and flying discs, who wouldn’t know what to do if a hand grenade flew at their face. People were going to get hurt, they were going to die. If Exxon-Mobil fell, the government would have to take notice, no matter how much the lobbyists paid them, and then they’d be facing the big guns - the ones transported by 18-wheelers and submarines.

There were hundreds of millions of lives at stake here.

“Get out.” Dean’s eyes fix on Crowley’s dark, soulless peepholes. “Get the fuck out!”

He leaves, sauntering like he’s just popping out for a stroll. He drives away alone.

“You better think about this, boy,” Bobby warns him. Rufus doesn’t bother to say a word.

Cas is the only one that stays, but Dean can’t talk to him right now. He snags the bottle of Cruzan he smuggled in on his last run and escapes to the roof. It’s the middle of the day, so people are going to look up and see him drinking in the afternoon, but he doesn’t give a fuck. Let them. Let there be some goddamned transparency in this camp. How does he never see this shit coming? He runs this camp - knows when each and every truck is going out, knows how long their supplies will last, knows who lives in which cabin and where each of their specific issues lie. But he always gets blind-sided by the people he trusts. And that’s the kicker, ain’t it?

He keeps an eagle’s eye on the shady folks, the ones that put a bad twist in his gut, but it’s the old men he thinks of like uncles that managed to stay in his blind spot. And Cas. They live together. They share a goddamned bed and not once, not once, has he mentioned anything about Fergus Crowley or the coming revolution.

Sometimes, wrapped together in the dark, Dean will catch Cas staring out the window at the night sky. In those moments, he’s so far away and Dean feels like he’s trying to trap starlight in his arms. There are things they don’t talk about. Dean’s mom. Cas’ dad. Jake. Sam. So Dean buries his nose in the back of Cas’ neck, inhales his warm, familiar scent, and doesn’t ask questions. Which makes it his fault, in the end. Really shouldn’t have let that sleeping dog lie.

Dean hears the door slam and feels the light tremble each of Cas’ steps sends through the porch, up the beams, and into the roof. He watches him walk down the street towards the schoolhouse, battered leather satchel slung over one shoulder.

Dean doesn’t want him to go. He wants him to turn around, to come back, climb out the window and onto the rafters to sit by Dean and tell him he’s sorry. That they’ll talk. That they’ll fix everything that’s wrong with them, and then tackle everything that’s wrong with the world.

And for one brief moment, Cas turns his head, blue eyes locking on Dean’s even though he’s so far away. Dean’s breath catches in his throat. His wishes hang in the wind on dandelion fluff and eyelashes and falling stars. He hopes.

And Cas, Cas turns away.

*****************************************************************

In the end, Cas leaves without a fight. Dean tries to give him one. Gives him angry, shouted words and fists and even a few tears, but Castiel gives him nothing in return. Others called Cas “Ice Queen” and “Stonewall Jackson” but Dean never minded his control, found it endearing even. But now he’s hollowing himself out and he needs Cas to give him something, anything back.

But Castiel just looks at him with those sad eyes and reaches up for his own cheek, touching the edges of the black eye he’s going to have in an hour or so. Cas apologizes. Not for what he’s doing, for what he’s going to do. No, he apologizes for not being able to make Dean see, for not being a good enough lying bastard to trick him into turning complacent and meek.

So in the end it’s Dean who storms out the door, into the camo Jeep and drives away. Chuck yells at him from the doorsteps of the courthouse, confused and panicked, but Dean didn’t turn back, just kept driving.

He did go back, a day later, but it was too late then. There was only Chuck sitting on the cold stone steps waiting for him with a bag of rations and another apology, both from Castiel. Dean took the food and Chuck, left everything else. And though he was the first to drive off, it felt like Castiel was the one to leave him, vanishing like fog in the morning light.

********************************************************************

The war lasts for ninety-seven days.

Ninety-seven days of air-raid sirens, of echoing shots, of red glow on the horizon. They dig deep and hope neither side is crazy enough to set off a nuclear weapon. The camp disappears above them, but the solid earth keeps them safe. The J&J boys die not ten feet from the bunker’s back entrance.

Dean loses people because there isn’t enough food, because someone contaminates the water supply upstream, because artillery fire doesn’t care whether you’re wearing corporation colors or whether you’re a twelve-year-old kid who couldn’t stand being cooped up in the dark for another twelve hours straight.

At night, Dean scans the skies with crappy bird-watching binoculars, hoping that the rocket launcher in his lap can do something to deter any wayward birds from dropping their payload, but he never sees more than a vee of blinking lights in the distance. The heavy fire stays away from Sioux Falls, and Dean wonders if there’s someone protecting them, if someone still remembers fondly the little camp that turned them from a sweet-tempered schoolteacher into the stone-eyed face of the Revolution.

Despite it all, he catches himself hoping that, wherever he is, Cas is safe and alive, that Crowley hasn’t managed to suck the good out of him. Because he has to believe it’s still there.

The war ends on a Tuesday, but they don’t find out until a week later when the radios crackle back to life filled with anthems and ballads about the land of the free and the home of the brave. Bright, marching tunes that are at complete odds with the grey faces that listen.

Dean thinks it’s all a load of crap, but there must be something in that music that he doesn’t hear, because the others start to change. At first, they only talk about going home, but then, when the radio stays on and the bombing stays gone, they begin to actually go home. They leave for places like Big Horn, Wyoming and Hillsboro, Ohio without tacking on the name of a ruling corporation and Dean supposes that’s a win. But he doesn’t trust, well, anyone, and definitely not Crowley.

So he sits in the camp that grows emptier day by day until it’s only him and those who don’t remember any home besides the four walls of a Koch cabin and the familiar smell of newspaper in the latrines.

Chuck shows up for their Monday meeting like nothing’s changed. He gives him a list of what they need. Across the top, in capital letters, like always, is TOILET PAPER. Dean cracks up. Tears well up in his eyes and he can’t breathe. Chuck looks at him like he’s gone crazy and maybe he has, because the next thing he does is fling the list back down to the table.

“Get your own goddamn toilet paper. War’s over, remember? I’m done.”


End file.
